Incubator thermometer / hydrometers ..

[Tammy Tucker]

Question about thermometers / hydrometers ... Just how many do you have to go through to be sure you have an accurate one ??
I have a digital thermometer/hydrometer I bought last year after I lost an entire batch of shipped hatching eggs (the old singular incubator one I had in with the 'lost' batch of eggs was off by 3 degrees) >> According to the new ones > I verified the new digital with > a new incubator thermometer & a new brooder thermometer > all 3 were within 1/2 to 1 degree of each other ...
Which I thought was acceptable because of their placement in my old still air incubator , it had a auto turner ....
This year I bought a new forced air incubator w turner and the thermometer thats built in it is off by 4 degrees > according to the digital therm/hydro & brooder & incubator thermometer from last year ......
I bought a new still air incubator to use as a hatcher and according to the directions I set it at 102 and the digital & brooder thermometer & incubator thermometer showed 99.5 lying on the floor of the incubator so I'm assuming the built in thermometer hydrometer built in it is correct ....
But I bought another digital thermometer hydrometer last week to use in the still air as a second check ... I put it into my fan incubator when it arrived to 'check' it and it says that that incubator is 103.5 !! when the other digital is saying 99.5 and the 2 others in there are within 1/2 degree of it !!!
Right now I have the new temp/hydro sitting on my house furnace thermometer which says the house temperature is 77 and the new one is saying 78.6 / 78.4..
I've been putting the eggs into the fan incubator on Monday evenings .. I'm moving to the still air hatcher on day 18 > Friday for lockdown and hatchings are 'starting' Sunday morning/afternoons , technically a day early , which I know can happen due to higher temperatures .. and I've had eggs not hatching (that when I candle look full of chick) and last hatch 2 that pipped a complete ring around the egg but didn't get out ...
I am driving myself nuts with this .... Is there no such thing as an accurate thermometer anymore

[Stan Alder]

It's hard to find a more accurate thermometer than the $5 digital ones you can get at a local drug store. They are labeled pharmaceutical  and are calibrated to work in a very narrow range...

[greeneggsandham]

Brinsea Spot Check thermometer.  Accurate to a tenth of a degree they say.  They are made to fit in the small air holes of those foam incubators.  You can get it all the way to the floor or take readings near the top.  I find they work very well.  I don't pay any attention to what my digital display says on my foam incubators.  I rely on the Brinsea.

[Birdcrazy]

Tammy, it has been years since I have used a styrene foam incubator. I have been using a 1502 incubator  and 1500 hatcher for the past several years. When I was using the foam incubators I seem to recall they recommended reading the temperature at the height of the top of the eggs. I used to cut a 2x2 block of wood to set the thermometer on to be about the right height.

[Stan Alder]

To get a very accurate temp of the eggs..I have put a water wigglie in the bator...leave it untill it has time to get to temp, then stick your thermometer in it....you will get a better reading of what the eggs internal temp is rather than the bator fluctuations ...this is assuming that you have an accurate thermometer...